A bug in Google Docs caused it to crash when typing a series of words into a document opened with an online word processor.
Once it crashes, you may not be able to easily revisit the document because doing so would trigger the crash again.
BleepingComputer was able to reproduce the issue last night and got in touch with Google.
Google told us it was aware of the bug and was working on a fix. Until then, we share a workaround below.
and. and. and. And… it’s gone!
it’s official– Google Docs crashes when it sees “And. And. And. And. And.” When “Show Grammar Suggestions” is on.
Google Docs user Pat Needham asked this question on the Google Docs Editors Help forum.
“I’ve only tried it in Google Chrome, and the documents are from three different Google accounts (personal, G Suite Basic, and possibly a business account for work). All three have the same problem,” the user wrote.
“It’s case sensitive. So trying ‘and.and.and.and.and.and.’ won’t crash it.”
While Needham publicly reported the bug, it appears that the problem was discovered by Eliza Callahan, who was using Google Docs to write poetry fiction for her novel.
In BleepingComputer’s tests last night, the behavior was successfully reproduced on the latest version of the Chrome web browser running on macOS Monterey.
After creating a new Google Docs document, after we entered the offending string in the document and refreshed the page, we started getting the following error message and couldn’t view or edit the document further:
Google Docs crashes when seeing “And. And. And. And. And.”. (Bilibili computer)
Needham’s findings were also confirmed by other users running Firefox 99.0.1
Another user, Sergii Dymchenko, said strings like “But. But. But. But. But.” elicited the same reaction. Some have also noticed that putting any term like “Also, And, Anyway, But, Who, Why, Before, However,” in the same format yields results.
A reader of YCombinator HackerNews suspects the reason is the “Show grammar suggestions” option in Google Docs, which was on by default in our tests.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the issue to BleepingComputer, adding: “We are aware of the issue and the team is working to resolve it.”
How to recover your documents?
Until Google finds what’s causing this, it’s best to turn off syntax suggestions by navigating to Tools → Spelling and Grammar and uncheck “Show grammar suggestions.”
Google Docs grammar check option enabled (Bilibili computer)
If the bug has already been triggered and you are locked out of the relevant Google Docs, there may be a workaround.
Use the Google Docs mobile app to access the document, delete the offending word, and the file should now also open normally on your web version of Google Docs.
“For some reason it doesn’t crash documents on mobile devices, so if you lose a document for this, you can get the Docs app on your phone, delete the offending sentence, and reload,” suggested user Sauron Gorthaur.
Update 05/06/2022 04:56AM ET: As of this morning, BleepingComputer is no longer able to reproduce the bug. We will continue to await an official response from Google on this matter.